UCL Advances

London schools use 16,000 lemons on international Citrus Saturday

07 July 2014

Schools from in and
around London have used over 16000 lemons, 8000 oranges and 7000 limes in a day of frenzied lemonade selling
that would rival The Apprentice as part of international Citrus Saturday.

Citrus Saturday – an initiative set up by UCL to show
young people what it’s like being an entrepreneur – saw 150 eager teens from more
than 30 schools and youth groups across London, including South Camden
Community School, the Bethnal Green Academy, Streatham and Clapham High
School and Westminster Academy set up 28 lemonade stands across London, from Euston to Lewisham Shopping
Centre.
The teams were supervised by a group of staff and
students from UCL, as well as six New Entrepreneurs Foundation Fellows, who as
well as supervising on Citrus Saturday also volunteered their time for a series
of workshops before the day , teaching the teams everything from basic business
management to food hygiene.

Each team ran their
stall as closely to that of a small business as possible, having been provided
with seed funding from UCL to buy fruit and materials for the day. After
frenzied selling on Citrus Saturday itself, the participants were allowed to
keep their profits.

The stands across London were generously provided
by partners including Boxpark Shoreditch, Land Securities, Euston and Paddington Stations, Sainsbury’s and
Waitrose.

The initiative is the brainchild of Timothy Barnes
– the Director of UCL Advances – after he travelled to a business
conference in
the US and hearing of a similar approach being pioneered there to
encourage
young people to aspire to set up their own businesses. The programme was
established with joint-funding from UCL and an EU Interreg 4b grant for
northwest Europe.

Citrus Saturday seeks to emulate that approach
through a fun, absorbing and – most importantly for the teenagers taking part –
financially rewarding day of setting up a lemonade stand.

The initiative is now in its fourth
year and, for the first time, saw young people across the UK and in Mozambique,
Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Swaziland and Greece all participating
in Citrus Saturday on the same day – the first Saturday in July.

Commenting on the
success of this year’s event in London, Jack Wratten, Citrus Saturday Manager,
said:

“This is the most popular Citrus Saturday
ever, with more schools and more young people taking part than ever before.

“The popularity of Citrus Saturday really comes from the kids taking part
taking the responsibility from the very beginning for all aspects of their
business – what kind of lemonade to sell, how to market it and which pitch they
want.

“It’s completely immersive
and fantastic in giving them a real taste of what running a business is like.”

Neeta Patel, CEO of the
New Entrepreneurs Foundation, added:

“We’re delighted to
support this excellent UCL initiative. The concept of getting children to think
about entrepreneurship by actually building a business in a day – in this case
a lemonade stand, is a great way to show them the many aspects of starting a
business. It’s hard work but done in a fun and engaging way.

“Our NEF Fellows who
are participating and sharing their skills and knowledge have enjoyed it
immensely. We plan to make this sort of outreach work a mandatory part of the
NEF learning programme as our Fellows also learn from the process. We hope to
become regular participants in the Citrus Saturday programme as it grows.”